Tegan and Sara Rock Spin House Live!

In the pantheon of desirable foreign accents, Canadian does not rank high. It is neither exotic nor particularly mellifluous. But Tegan and Saraâ€™s Spinhouse live performance changed all that. Their set was nearly flawless, and their onstage banter, peppered with abooots and hosers, was so darling that for the first time in my life I wished that I had been born in a manger in Saskatoon.

The Calgary-born twin sisters played an acoustic set that brought down the Spinquarters with its bubbly simplicity. They kicked off a five-song performance with the fourth song off their latest album, So Jealous. The twisting, chirpy harmonies of Tegan and Sara in “I Know I Know I Know,” kept the audience rapt.

Tegan spent most of the time between songs bickering goodheartedly with Sara. Tegan wanted to play the song “You Wouldn’t Like Me,” but Sara demurred. With lyrics like, “I wouldn’t like me if I met me,” Sara said, “They’re really going to think we hate ourselves.” “A quote from a magazine said we wrote about something, something, something, and self-hatred,'” Tegan explained. Sara assured the crowd, “We really don’t hate ourselves.” “And we were never into Wicca.” She added.

Whether or not the twins hate themselves is subject to debate, but the Spin audience showed only love for their guests.